


Mustangs and Spaceships

by Peril_in_Peace



Series: The More Things Change [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Gen, Overthinking the Past, Peter's Pops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-04 16:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peril_in_Peace/pseuds/Peril_in_Peace
Summary: Picks up right after "Shaking the Polaroid." Pops is getting pensive in his old age and can't help but think about how things could have been versus how they are. And with Peter finally starting to open up to him, he wants to make the most of his promise to "teach him something."





	1. Chapter 1

 

Gregg had always been a sucker for speed. In high school and college, his pride and joy was his fixed-up 1953 Indian Chief, shined and tuned to perfection. He’d only sold it in ‘59 because the Navy was gonna teach him how to  _ fly _ . 

And… his wife made him. Her pops sold them his old Chevy to use during officer training and flight school in Virginia--practical. Good for groceries and pregnant wives.

When he got back from Vietnam in ‘66, he got a shiny blue Mustang--after a few too many touchy landings and a genuinely, bone-deep scary bailout that he would never talk about  _ ever _ , thankyou _ very _ much--his knees and back just weren’t quite in motorcycle shape anymore. But that was just fine. He’d gotten used to the roar and feel of a larger engine. 

Louise didn’t understand. There was a lot she didn’t understand… and that was fine. She didn’t press, and he didn’t say. Back then, a man came back from war... things were different. Back then… well, he just got himself a Mustang. He knew he was luckier than most.

By then, Meredith was almost 6. He’d set her on his lap to steer, while he worked the gearshift, clutch, and the pedals, gently keeping two fingers on the bottom of the wheel. She would sing to the radio at the top of her lungs, even as a little girl, wind blowing at loose strands of her braided hair. She was a sucker for speed, too. 

When he’d had enough of living on base, training cocky kids to go off to a war that just kept  _ going  _ (while he stayed on the ground and waved goodbye), he resigned his commission. In that last year on active duty before his separation became official, the war ended. 

And Louise served him with divorce papers and moved out. (“Greggory, a woman  _ can _ have a  _ life _ without a husband, you know.” It  _ was _ the seventies.) It was friendly enough, though--no hard feelings, really--they’d been too young when they got married and Meredith was mostly raised, now.

Gregg moved back to Missouri, to the old house where he’d grown up. Meredith came with him. She was 14. Louise stayed in Richmond. Mer visited her the next few summers. The year she turned 16, she and a friend drove out in his Mustang. 

She came home with speeding tickets from three states. Why was she even  _ in  _ Ohio, anyway? He never did find out.

So it had not surprised him at all that Peter, even so far removed from home, ended up a pilot. A far faster one, he was very sure, than he had ever been even on his most reckless days. 

There’d been times over the years when Gregg had thought about what could have been… flipping through aviation magazines, wondering idly about buying an ultralight, imagining taking Peter up as a boy. 

He’d  _ loved _ Peter, his daughter’s son. And he knew the boy loved him… but for the life of him, he’d never known quite how to bond with the kid… he’d been so intent on being the  _ man _ in his life, the leader… a mentor? He’d been away when Mer was little… he just didn’t know how to be family to this child, and it was too late by the time he’d realized it.

So he’d sit for hours sometimes, thinking that maybe flying would have been the thing that connected them when Peter got older. Something they would have both loved. 

And Gregg was a big enough man to admit that his heart broke a little when Gamora’d told him the man who  _ took  _ Peter taught him how to fly. 

Of course, it would have to be the case that  _ someone _ did. Someone not him. Of course. He knew that. But it was just kind of… insult to injury, really. 

That was supposed to be  _ his. _

But no. It stung. And he could  _ not _ understand this bizarre... reverence? For his abductor. This Yondu Udonta. Gregg shrugged off an old memory of running out of the hospital after Peter that night… too late… and too crazy by half.  _ Sure _ . A goddamn spaceship.

(He remembered  _ making _ himself believe it was crazy, because the alternative meant that he had so  _ wrongly  _ believed  _ Meredith  _ had been crazy… shushing and then patronizing her, blaming it all on the tumor… and now she was  _ dead  _ and that was just… he just  _ couldn’t… _ )

Crazy--until aliens attacked New York twenty years later, of course. 

After listening to Peter last night, though… what with the kinda guy Pete’s father had actually turned out to be, Gregg quite wished she really  _ had _ been crazy, and that the  _ real  _ guy had been some random, lying-ass deadbeat from St. Louis just trying to get into her pants. ( _ Sorta  _ like that Jason-slash-Ego prick but, you know,  _ not  _ an alien planet supervillain.) 

_ Sigh. _

So what was it? Brainwashing? Stockholm Syndrome? Or simply too much time away? He knew… a man could adapt to just about anything if he had to.

Case in point, the kid was with a hot green alien chick straight outta Star Trek, like it was the most natural thing in the world, for god’s sake. Though, Gregg couldn’t honestly avoid the fact that he’d barely batted an eye at her himself. And, he really quite liked her. How times have changed...

Or did Peter really just hate his own home… his own people and family and  _ planet  _ so much that this… affection for everything  _ not _ Earth seemed to come so easily? 

He tried not to think about the obvious next question. The one that he’d been pushing away ever since he’d gotten that phone call a few days ago. 

_ “Why had he never come back before now?” _ his traitorous brain whispered angrily. 

Gregg groaned and rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand again. It had already been late by the time he and Peter had finished talking, but now it was the early hours of the morning. It was July, and the sun would be rising soon. 

A quick glance under the closed bedroom door showed a slit of light from the hallway. Looked like the kids had never come back upstairs. Either they were still up and might as well keep him company, or they had passed out on the couch and could do with a nudge to bed for a couple hours of good sleep.

 

* * *

 

Neither of them had cared for coffee. They both dutifully tried it, but made  _ blech- _ faces and politely declined to drink any more. 

“This is a  _ common _ beverage?” Gamora had asked quietly, as they drank their water and took their numerous vitamins and supplements the first morning (formulated for individual biology to compensate for time in space with no sunlight, artificial gravity, recycled air and nutritionally simple rations, she explained later). 

Peter nodded incredulously. “Yeah, everybody drinks it. Like, all the time. My mom used to go through a whole pot every day by herself,” he replied, absently humming the old  _ “It’s Folger’s in your cuuuup” _ jingle and popping a small handful of beige pills.

“It tastes like tar,” Gamora observed. 

“That’s what sugar’s for, I guess.” Peter shrugged. 

So this morning, when he came downstairs and saw the kids passed out on the couch--Peter sitting up, his legs propped on the coffee table next to a Stark Industries Toughbook, and Gamora kinda sprawled sideways, with her head half on his thigh and her feet tucked under one of the back cushions--he put on a kettle of water for some tea, then started the coffee pot for himself. 

“Shit,” he hissed. The kettle started whistling on the stove. He’d been trying to be quiet. He reached over and moved the pot, turning off the burner, but Peter was already in the doorway, yawning. 

“Mornin’” Peter mumbled, stumbling blearily to the kitchen table. Gregg almost laughed at how ridiculous he looked in his old clothes, fished from the back of his closet. Gregg was not a small man, but Pete had a good few inches on him… the flannel pants were baggy to accommodate Gregg’s old-man gut, but were almost comically short on the kid… whereas he was  _ swimming  _ in the old threadbare t-shirt. Pete was in  _ slightly _ better shape than  _ he  _ had been in the mid-eighties. 

Gregg dropped a potholder on the table and put the kettle down in front of Peter, along with a couple of mismatched mugs and some tea sachets. “Honey?” he asked, reaching into a cabinet. 

Peter nodded, unwrapping the string from around one of the tea packets. “Sure. Thanks.” He examined the writing on the tab. “Lemon Ginger. This stuff any good?”

“My friend, Evelyn… she likes it. Says ginger is good for your brain. I don’t much care for it… but then, I love coffee. What do I know?” Gregg poured himself a cup of “tar,” leaving it black, and sat down across from Peter at the table. Peter smirked and snorted a laugh. 

“Fair enough. Who’s this friend? Evelyn?” he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, 

“Christ, son. You know how old I am? Nothing like that.” Gregg glared jokingly, then tentatively sipped at his scalding beverage. Perfect. “The VA put me in touch with the place she works for. She comes by a couple times a week, helps out around the house, runs errands, helps with doctor’s appointments and whatnot. Sometimes she brings her kids around and they play in the yard… sweet family.”

Peter’s expression shifted from playful to pensive right quick, as he certainly started thinking about the sad things Gregg thought about all the time. He was an old man with no family left to speak of (until quite recently). An old man worries about stuff like that--being alone. Kids-- especially those who had places to go and things to do far away from said old  men-- shouldn’t. 

“Me wanting a little help now and then ain’t anything to worry about. I’m merely taking advantage of the privileges afforded those of advancing age. I damn well  _ earned  _ my retirement.” Gregg grinned over his mug. Peter smiled back after a moment’s thoughtful hesitation. 

Peter poured hot water into both mugs, setting the tea to steep, like he expected Gamora to get up any minute and wanted her’s to be ready too. 

They seemed to have a knack for knowing what was up with the other. 

He’d noticed little things. At first, for instance, they were so  _ quiet _ . They talked to  _ him _ . They talked to each other if there was an actual conversation… but… other things just sort of  _ happened _ as if by themselves. And it took him a little time to observe that Peter and Gamora just didn’t need the words. 

They worked as a unit. 

Unpacking their few belongings in the guest room. Sharing space in the bathroom. Doing the dishes. Setting the table. Even last night, the way they reacted to the movie on TV… it was all in the looks and the movements. 

Gregg was honestly a little jealous. He’d never known anyone in his whole life that well. Even his own wife, in the end, had felt like nothing more than a roommate. Meredith had probably come the closest--but that was so different. He knew  _ her…  _ everything about her. But he always kept her from knowing things about him, because he was her  _ father _ and that wasn’t how things worked. A man should project a certain image to his child. 

Sure enough, Gamora walked in, looking a bit more awake than his grandson had, and sat down next to Peter. Pete pushed a mug over to her and got up to fill a couple glasses with water. She opened up both of their vitamin packs and then took a sip of the still-steeping tea and nodded her head, giving Gregg a little smile. 

“I like this,” she said. 

“There’s some honey, if you want it a little sweeter,” he answered.

She shook her head and took another sip as Peter sat back down. Gamora continued sipping at her tea, both hands around the cup with elbows on the table. She was facing Gregg, but her eyes were to the side, trying to catch Peter. She hid a ghost of a smile behind the rim of the mug, like she was waiting for something. 

Peter knocked back his vitamins, then took another long sip of wa--

“Peter is very excited about driving today,” Gamora said cheerfully. Peter choked. 

_ “WHY?!” _ he sputtered loudly between coughs. Gamora just smiled. Gregg shook his head and chuckled. “Not cool, man…” Peter mumbled after he caught his breath. 

“What?” Gamora said innocently. “You’re happy, he’s happy. What’s the problem?”

Peter looked at her, then at him. His face was still red from coughing. He fiddled with his mug and looked down at his hands. Greg frowned. There  _ was  _ a problem. 

“It’s dumb,” Peter said. 

“What?” Gamora nudged.

“I was thinking…” he sighed. “I… feel like an idiot. I guess. I know, it’s stupid. I’m just… you know… I’m pushing for--mmmm…” he tilted his head and groaned self-consciously. “I’m on the wrong side of  _ thirty-five _ ,” he amended, glaring halfheartedly at Gregg when he snorted. “I’m not a frickin’ teenager anymore. Feel like I just kinda... missed my window on some stuff.”

Gregg actually felt like he could relate. Seemed like all of the sudden, time had started to move real fast, and it was easy for an old guy to feel left behind. It had been supremely depressing, taking that class at the senior center to learn how to work the laptop he’d bought… he’d had to--seemed like paying bills by mail practically wasn’t even  _ allowed  _ anymore. 

And the new car he’d had to buy after after that big chemical-volcano-blob disaster downtown a few years ago? (He was lucky all he'd needed was a new car, and that he and Evelyn hadn't been _killed_. A lot of other folks hadn't been so fortunate...) He had felt like a total beginner and had, honest to God, almost  _ cried _ trying to figure out the goddamn touch screen and back-up camera bullshit. Alarms and warning lights for everything. Drove him nuts. Thing practically drove itself.

Gregg took a deep breath and enjoyed another long sip of his coffee, considering his plans for the day. 

“Go get dressed, son. I wanna show you something.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Pops spend some time together.

Gregg was sitting on the porch in his Adirondack when Peter came back down. He was in his own clothes, but they looked normal enough that he didn’t figure he’d stick out too bad. His shoes looked a little weird, but that was just him… shoes looked all kinds of strange, nowadays.

“Gamora comin’?” he asked.

Peter leaned up against the awning post and shook his head. “Naw, she uh… well, she _said_ she wanted to watch TV. But I think she’s just tryin’ to…”

“Leave us alone?”

“Yeah.”

For a second, Gregg’s heart jumped into his throat, and he hoped that he hadn’t been imagining the progress he thought they’d been making. Just for a second, he wished for Gamora’s reassuring nod. “Isn’t a problem, is it?” he asked.

“No, ‘course not.” Peter looked at him pointedly, and Gregg nodded, pushing up from his chair.

“Alright then.”

They walked down the few porch steps side by side. Peter veered off to the left when they hit the ground, and Gregg stopped. “Where you going?”

Peter looked around, then pointed behind him with his thumb. “Garage?”

Gregg grinned. “Not that one. Come on ‘round back.”

It was a bit of a hike to the old barn. They followed the gravel road, Peter kicking at the odd rock or piece of bark littering the path.

“So what happened to Bob Barker? He dead?”

“Hmm?”

“ _The Price is Right_? It was on, and I was trying to explain it to Gamora, and there was this other guy--I mean, it was crazy enough that it was still on, but it was sorta weird without Barker.”

Gregg laughed. “No… actually, I’m pretty sure he’s still kickin’. Just retired.”

Peter seemed to consider this for a minute as they kept walking.

“How ‘bout Dick Clark? Did he ever get any older?”

“Not really. He just died. Lookin’ about the same as he always did.”

“Is Heather Locklear still hot?”

Gregg laughed. “Yeah, pretty hot.”

“Nice.”

Gregg patted Peter on the shoulder, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket as they neared the side door to the converted barn. It was small for a barn, but pretty big for a garage. A few years after he’d moved back, he’d spent some time and money on it--reinforcing the structure, laying some new cement to level out the floor, replacing the old windows and doors. He turned it into a workshop of sorts, so he could store his larger tools and some other things that didn’t fit or belong in the house or everyday garage.

And one other thing.

He pushed the door open with a loud creak and flipped on the series of light switches on the wall. The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling slowly lit and brightened, adding a sickly white to the dull yellow coming in from the dirty windows.

“Grab the other side, will ya?” Gregg asked. Peter nodded and walked to the far end of the large, hidden machine dominating the middle of the room. They each grabbed a corner of the brown canvas and pulled it away, uncovering the old convertible.

Gregg smiled softly at seeing her again. It’d been a long time since he came for a visit, and he hadn’t driven her in years. He sloppily folded up the canvas cover in a pile on the floor and ran his hand over the lip of the trunk, tracing the lines between the Tahoe Turquoise base paint and Emberglo GT stripes.

Still a sharp as hell combination, if he said so himself. 1966 was a good year for Ford.

“Oh my God.”

Gregg barely heard the whisper, but it startled him. He looked over at Peter, who had slowly started to round the front of the Mustang, fingers gently grazing the top of the doors, then the chrome trim around the windshield, then the front fin.

He kinda looked like he was about to cry, actually. Gregg frowned. “Pete, you okay?”

Peter moved his head funny, like he couldn’t decide between a shake and a nod. “I just… I can’t believe I forgot.” Peter scrunched up his face and closed his eyes. “Except I didn’t?”

“I don’t follow, son.” Gregg circled around to the front of the car and propped himself on a high stool by the workbench. Peter kept looking at the car.

“I… forgot a lot. At first. Really fast, too. I knew it was happening, and I didn’t try to stop it. I didn’t feel bad about it… at the time, anyway. It made things a lot easier.”

Gregg furrowed his brow and crossed his arms trying to work out what Peter was talking about, before it dawned on him.

_Oh._

Pete hadn't said much about that far back. About the beginning, when he’d first… left… and Gregg had honestly been afraid to ask.

“Before I really knew it, all I remembered about home that had any feelings attached was that mom was dead. By then, wanting to go back was just habit, because I’d been fucking _abducted_ , and wanting to go home was what you were _supposed_ to do in that situation. But… I sorta… stopped caring if I ever came back at all. ” He shrugged halfheartedly, trying to shake off his self-consciousness.

“Pete…”

“Which I guess was good… Yondu kept telling me I was never coming back. All I could remember after a while was dumb shit like TV shows and song lyrics. Anything that really mattered… was like I was just looking at pictures in an album from somebody else’s life. And… it was easier to accept.”

Peter smiled a little. “You know, when I bought my ship from him, it was a piece of shit. All I could afford. I’d been flying it since I was ten, so mostly it was my own fault that it was falling apart, but now it was _mine_ … I had to fix it up--a Ravager’s M-ship is a point of pride, you know?”

The kid was starting to ramble, now. Gregg just listened.

“And when I painted her, for some reason, all I could think of was blue and orange. It was all that made sense. Like, why would a ship ever be any other colors?

“Yondu was pissed. Like, not even just ‘That’s ugly as shit, son’” Peter had tilted his head and lowered his voice mockingly. “But like, _actually_ pissed--No red? Can’t even represent your own faction on your goddamn ship? I told him to suck it. Well, not to his face--but in my head, afterwards…”

Gregg couldn’t help but smile a little at the mental image of it.

“But the _Milano_ \--” he continued, “She _had_ to be blue and orange. And the right shades, too… Had a little trouble working them out, but I got close… There was never any other choice.” Peter finally stopped and looked up at him, square in the eye.

“Pops… I forgot that you used to sit me on your lap and let me steer.”

Gregg’s eyes welled up. Oh, God. He’d forgotten too. Just like with Meredith, when she was small… Meredith smiling in the passenger seat, Pete’s shaggy blonde head under his chin and little fingers around the wheel…

“Even though I didn’t remember,” Peter almost whispered. “I didn’t even know it. But I think I’ve been trying to… I dunno… keep driving your Mustang with you… trying to hold onto that my whole life.”

Gregg set his jaw, sniffed and cleared his throat. Goddamn emotional ambush. He swallowed hard and got up, turning to the workbench. He grabbed the car keys out of one of the old coffee tins on the shelf and tossed them to Peter.

“Show me,” he said, his voice unexpectedly wet and a little gravelly. Peter looked like he was going to say something, but couldn’t settle on what.

Gregg pointed at the driver’s side door. “She’s been sitting here awhile, so we got some stuff to check before we take her out. Put the key in the ignition, and give it a half turn--don’t start the engine--just enough to check the battery. The interior lights and the radio oughtta come on.”

Peter nodded and opened the door. Gregg turned back to the workbench and found a couple of flashlights.

“Nothing happened.”

Gregg nodded. “Figures.” He reached under the bench and pulled out a bottle of distilled water and a milkcrate full of miscellaneous tools. “Pop the hood. There should be kind of a hook-latch under the dash on your left side. Pull on it. Then come here and grab this box.”

He heard the hood unlock after a few seconds of Peter no doubt feeling around for the latch. Then he got out of the car and picked up the milkcrate. Gregg grabbed the water.

“Battery’s probably a little thirsty. We’ll check the water levels, then jump it. I’ll take care of the battery. In the meantime, I want you to look over the tires. Go grab one of those flashlights, and check for cracks in the rubber. Then I’ll show you how to check the pressure.”

 

* * *

 

The kid knew his way around a vehicle. Damn fine mechanical instincts.

It took about an hour--but between the two of them, they got the battery charged and the engine running, replaced a couple of rotted belts and changed out a tire of questionable integrity.

All the while, Gregg quizzed him on the rules of the road.

“I bet you remember a lot more than you think, just from bein’ chauffeured around as a kid,” Gregg had assured him, as Peter pumped the jack.

“Yeah, I remember mom smackin’ my hand away from the radio when I tried to change the station.”

“Yeah, what else? What’d she do when she turned?”

“Blinkers,” Peter answered. He didn’t even have to think about it.

Gregg nodded, rolling over a spare tire. “What do you do at a stop sign?”

Peter stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s just insulting.”

The old man smiled broadly and flipped Pete a socket wrench for the wheel lugs.

He wandered over to the dusty, cheap old CD player up on the shelf over the workbench--he didn’t even remember what was in it--and pressed play. And Peter started bobbing his head in time with his foot stomping on the long arm of the wrench trying to loosen a stubborn lug. And suddenly they were both singing along to Journey’s Greatest Hits.

And for just a minute… just a _minute_ … Greg felt like maybe Meredith was just in the house watching TV or checking Peter’s homework or making lunch, waiting for him and Peter to come back in from messing around in the garage like they did on just any normal summer morning.

He’d had it all wrong, this whole time. He’d had it wrong when Pete was little. After he’d gone, when he’d sit there thinking about what could have been. Over-thinking. Even in his own imagination, he’d been trying too hard. He’d had it all wrong. He’d known it, somewhere… he’d known he’d had _something_ about the whole thing wrong… but didn’t quite know what.

But now that he’d gotten something right, finally… it was just so fucking obvious. And so goddamn easy. Why’d he have to try so hard, when all he had to do was be there?

 

* * *

 

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea…”

“Well, son, you ain’t exactly gonna fit on my lap, anymore. If you wanna drive, you’re gonna have to do it yourself.”

“I don’t have a license.”

“So don’t get pulled over,” Gregg shrugged from the passenger seat.

Peter gripped the wheel with both hands a little too tightly. “Uh-huh,” he grunted incredulously.

Gamora rolled her eyes. “The great Star-Lord, _legendary outlaw,_ intimidated by some pitiful terran law enforcement. Really?”

“It should be noted,” Peter drawled casually, turning to glare at her in the seat behind Gregg’s. “That the last time I ran into some ‘pitiful law enforcement,’ I was _thrown in jail_ for defending myself against two separate parties trying to murder me for my shit and snatch me for a-- a _spite_ bounty. _I_ hadn’t even technically done anything illegal…” He paused and thought for a second. “At the time… I don’t think… So anyway, _forgive me_ if I’d rather steer clear.”

She quirked an eyebrow and tilted her head, with an ‘ _are you finished?’_ look.

Peter’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses, crows feet scrunching as he turned back toward the windshield. “I never did get an apology, by the way,” he mumbled. “That throwing knife left a scar, you know.”

“That attempted murder was the best thing that ever happened to you,” she crossed her arms.

“Whatever.”

“And you love that scar. It’s your favorite.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Gregg leaned back and stretched his legs. As entertained as he was, it was hot and sunny with the top down, and he was itching for a stiff breeze. Anyway, Peter hadn’t changed at all. Whether it was this or getting another 15 minutes of staying up before bed, running his mouth off was always his go-to procrastination strategy. And Gregg had always been totally--well, mostly--immune.

“Kids, we gettin’ this show on the road, or what?”

Peter glanced back at him, took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, like he was squaring up to shoot. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

Gregg nodded and glanced down and the gear shift. “Atta boy. Alright, then… Hold down the brake with your right foot, check that you’re in neutral, then start the car. Hit the clutch with your left foot and put it in first--make sure you’re all the way in gear--then take your foot off the clutch and gently hit the gas.”

Peter turned the key, closing his eyes for a second as the engine growled, a little smile on his face. He just touched the gas, revving the engine a little.

He hit the clutch and looked down at the shifter--he didn’t know the gears by feel. Gregg gently led his right hand with his left, nudging it in the right direction.

He had the slightest flash of their positions reversed--Peter, maybe five or six, sitting in the passenger seat, his little hand over Gregg’s as he shifted, trying to figure out the directions. Peter took his foot off the brake, and the car lurched forward.

Peter slowly blew out a deep breath as he steered around a gentle curve in the long gravel driveway rounding the house. “How do I know when to change gears?”

“At first?” Gregg answered, “Watch your gauges--speed and rpm. General rule is roughly every 15 miles per hour or about when you hit 3000 rpm but you should hear it in the engine too… before it starts to rev too loud, you should be upshifting as your accelerate.

“But just getting to the gas station, and trying to _not_ get pulled over as we are, we’ll take it slow... once we pull onto the street, accelerate a little and shift into second. That’ll probably get us where we’re going for now.”

They reached the end of the driveway. Peter was looking more relaxed. It made sense, really… The kid’s biggest obstacle was his own muscle memory. He knew the feeling… Spend so long being used to operating one kind of vehicle, then try to switch it up? Habits can be hard to break. But the foundation was solid. Just needed a little practice.

“Wait a sec...  Gamora?” Peter glanced back at her in the rearview. She nodded back.

“Ready,” she answered, holding a little black piece of plastic with another brown piece of slapdash metal jutting off the top, like some sorta weird antenna. She smiled. “Any last minute changes to the playlist?”

“Nope. It’s perfect.” Peter reached down and turned on the radio. Some godawful punk shit started blaring, before it was replaced by static, then silence. Gamora clicked the piece of plastic and the first strains of _Bohemian Rhapsody_ started playing. Because of course he’d made a soundtrack for this.

“15 miles per hour, 3000 rpm?” Peter confirmed. He had an odd confidence in his voice that made Gregg both proud and a little apprehensive. He suddenly had the same bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d had when he’d sent Meredith off to visit her mom when she was 16.

“Yeaaah…” he started cautiously with a sigh. “Gas station’s gonna be to the left.” Peter nodded and dutifully looked both ways on the lonely country road. Then, he hit the gas, turning the wheel and shifting into first, then second, then accelerating quickly into third, Freddie Mercury lamenting on the wind.

Goddamn sucker for speed. Just as he should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first... I know very little about cars... anything I've had to do to fix my own car has come from a youtube video or how-to wiki. If I've seriously messed anything up (I did actually do some research, but on-paper can be different from real life, so...) I'm sorry. Also, I do not drive a stick. I took some little snippets from when I was little, and the few good memories I have from my own dad were him trying to teach me about how it worked when he drove... then I found some how-to's online. So again... if I'm wrong on anything, my apologies. I did my best! Yes... they made Mustangs in automatic transmissions in 1966... but I figured Pops would have found such a thing blasphemous on a muscle car and would never have purchased one. Speaking of the 1966 Mustang... Tahoe Turquoise and Emberglo were actual exterior paint colors offered by Ford that year and do actually look a lot like the paint job on the Milano. ;)
> 
> My apologies for how long this took! I'm so sorry--work has been crazy! 
> 
> I hope this is enjoyed! Thank you for reading. :)
> 
> P.S. I do not feel done with Pops. I think he needs to hang around some more.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on writing this, and I wasn't planning for it to be multi-chapter, but a couple commenters suggested it and I had the nugget in my head, so I went for it. Next chapter should be up soon. :) Thank you for reading, and I hope it's enjoyed. I really had fun with Pops' POV.


End file.
